BOYCOTT BEST BUY FOR THE WAY THEY TREAT THEIR EMPOYEES WITH DEADLY ILLNESSES

A letter to BEST BUY CEO Brad Anderson along with replies from his office ---

Dear Mr. Anderson;

This is regarding a manager, Veronica and another manager named Jeffrey at your TECH RIDGE Store 1116 who DISCRIMINATES against employees with serious illnesses! ...

A family friend, Larone Walker worked there until a few days ago (and is african-american) has a life threatening illness - SICKLE CELL ANEMIA.

He quit because he was constantly harassed by Veronica and Jeffrey about calling in when his illness was acting up - Veronica's excuse was "We just don't know very much about your illness- so you need to provide us documentation about it - Ummm - nope - All she and Jeffrey needs to know is that he has a life threatening illness that he will eventually die from. Jeffrey has even gone as far as using this as an excuse to leave Larone off the schedule stating "We know you get sick every month without fail, so we're helping you out by not scheduling you for a few weeks". That sounds like a punishment because he has a illness!

If she wants to know more about this illness - it's called GOOGLE -

One of your district managers has a Family Member with Sickle Cell - so this was never problem until Veronica came aboard. I didn’t know that your managers also have a license to practice medicine.

I think once I pay off my Best Buy credit card (which will be by the end of the year) I will no longer do business with a store that discriminates.

The Tech Ridge store 1116 needs to issue an apology to Mr. Walker, offer him his job back and have a Sickle Cell Awareness day -

If this fails to happen, I will start an email campaign against your company, If nothing changes, then I will start a web page called BEST BUY TECH RIDGE DISCRIMINATES AGAINST EMPLOYEES WITH DEADLY ILLNESSES! If this still does not get your attention, I will go to the media -

If you don't believe me - just try me -I have a VERY BIG mouth!

I hope his family decides to sue.

Thank you -

Denise Zuniga

P.S. I have sent a copy of this email to:

Ira Bragg-Grant
Executive Director
American Sickle Cell Anemia Association

_________________________
Their response:

Subject: RE: Store 1116 discriminates against employees with life threatening illnesses
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:57:15 -0500
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

Denise –

We appreciate you contacting Mr. Anderson’s office regarding this issue however since you are not the employee directly involved we are unable to address any concerns on behalf of Mr. Walker. If Mr. Walker wants us to address this concern directly on his behalf we would be pleased to do so but he will need to contact us.

Regards,

Marilyn Williams
Executive Assistant to Brad Anderson,
Vice Chairman & CEO
Best Buy Co., Inc.
_________________________________________________

Dear Ms. Williams -

Thank you for your reply. I am a CUSTOMER who does business with you extensively! I will be starting an email campaign to boycot BEST BUY and will also follow through with my promise to create a website against this discrimination and I will include your response as well.

Please tell Mr. Anderson he will be loosing customers.
______________________________________

Subject: RE: Store 1116 discriminates against employees with life threatening illnesses
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:33:05 -0500
From: [email protected]

Denise,

Please do not misinterpret my reply as not being concerned. It is just that we have HR Policies in place and without the employee contacting us directly with his concerns we only have hearsay. We are limited to how far this can be investigated and we cannot reply to you regarding this issue due to privacy concerns with one of our employees.

We understand that you, as a customer, may choose to shop to at another store. We hope you will still consider Best Buy however please understand that there are several privacy issues at stake here. I hope you will consider Mr. Walker’s feelings before making anything public about his condition.

Marilyn Williams
Executive Assistant to Brad Anderson,
Vice Chairman & CEO
Best Buy Co., Inc.
___________________________
From: ezunigafamily
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Store 1116 discriminates against employees with life threatening illnesses
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:46:31 -0500

Are these YOUR comments or Mr. Anderson's comments? Has he even see this email? I think you should let HIM decide what needs to happen.

His mother has contacted your office and your office have ignored her as well! HE has complained to upper management and HE has been ignored!

Mr. Walker is aware of everything that I have written.

When a charge like this is brought to the CEO's attention, it is his job to find out what is going on, not to dismiss it as HEARSAY!

I will not be shopping at any other Best buy as you have lost me as a customer. I cannot condone shopping at a business that treats their employees in this manner.

Like I said in my original email, "If you don't believe me - just try me -I have a VERY BIG mouth! "

I called the store 4/4/09 and asked for price match on sony lcd tv 46" z4100from J&R stores they told me yes. I went there 4/5/09 and asked sales person again and showed him ad he took ad and came back to me and told me he will match the price so I told him I want TV, TV stand and Blue-ray DVD player there is charge for $125.00 for furniture Assembley. I said yes O.K. that I thought tv-dvd hook-up include in $125.00 but not included I have to pay another $75.00 for that so I told him I don't want furniture Assembley which is $125.00 I will do it myself.Then he told me I have to take $75.00 hook-up I said fine then all of sudden he told me he don't want to sell me this item. I asked Why?
He told me I have to buy furniture Assembley, how come? I t has nothing to do with TV's price match. Spoke to manager she told me she is not involved and she will not match the price. I spend 90 Minutes for nothing. BE CAREFULL ABOUT BEST BUY ELECTRONIC STORE.

I purchased about 600 dollars of merchandise from Best Buy at 18 months interest free. I attempted to pay my bill online on December 26, 2008. My payment was not due until 8 days later on January 3, 2009. When I got online, I learned that the payment could not be paid because I was too late.

Eight days prior to my bill being due, was too late according to Best Buy. I was charged a $39.00 late fee.

I receive my bills online. No paper bills. I did not receive a bill online which payment was due on February 3, 2009. Once again I was charged a $39, 00 late charge by Best Buy. I believe they are fraudulently charging customers late fees.

I closed my account soon after the second late fee.

Bought ipod on Friday March 19, 2009; turns out it is defective merchandise; returned it on Monday, March 23, 2009 for a replacement or a refund. The geek squad took it out of my sight and when they returned it, the ipod was scratched and they would not repair or refund $250.11 . Obviously something was done to my ipod when it was out of my sight. The technician "suddenly" detected water damage??? This came out of nowhere. I am disputing the credit card charge on my VISA. I am well within the 14-day return policy. DO NOT SHOP AT BEST BUY - they are the worst!

I told some customers that were in the return line and they seem to agree that I should not lose out $250.00, and when I told customers that were going to shop there what had happened they turned around and walked away.
Other shoppers were ignored and left on their own accord. When I shared my experience they were happy to walk away from BEST BUY store #138.

I was with my husband in BB. i stepped away for a moment to pick out a movie and he went to play video games. I noticed that a man was creepily following me for a good five minutes. he was staring and reeked of boozes. Finnaly the man wasnt even trying to hide himself, so i ask him if i could help him with something and if not to leave me alone and go away. He told me that he couldnt stop staring at a beautiful women when he saw one. I felt extremely uncomfortable and told him thanks, but no thanks(im married) Well, he didnt stop. i walked away to put space between us and he stood at the end of the isle with his eyes fixated on me. creepy... finally i went to an employee and explained what was going on and the employee told me that he was just walking around and was drunk( basically, no b deal) he also said he had seen what was going on and he obviously didnt take the initiative to ask me if there was a problem. so when i got no response from him i had gone to another employee, who told me dont let a man ruin your day over that.. ummm excuse me i was being sexually harassed!!! After all that they did nothing.. what was a drunk man doing in best buy just hanging out and walking around.. well no good can come from that and that will only travel by word of mouth and surely contribute to the negative reputation of the store..

I hope these issues are addressed seriously. women do not deserve to be treated as an object or feel uncomfortable while trying to shop because a MAN feels the need to stare.. yah know .. what a sicko. and shame on best buy for the lack of training on the topic of Sexual harassment!!